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How can I or can I.....


daedae9

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How can I or can I send a stereo sound(Music) through a XLR SPLITTER through a SINGLE XLR CABLE to a XLR SPLITTER

and would I get my L/R SIDES to the music on the opposite end?

(Diagram) ===>--------<=== XLR splitter, single XLR CABLE, XLR splitter...

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I'm not sure what youj're asking here. Is your intent to split a stereo source to two seperate stereo destinations? That's the only reason why I can see that you'd need the splitter.

 

As Phil said, you'll be running the signals unbalanced, and you'll need specially wired cables on the source and destination ends of the run, but you can use a regular-wired XLR cable between them.

 

The problem with running an unbalanced connection is that it's more susceptible to hum and other noise pickup than with a balanced connection. How big of a problem it will be depends on the electromagnetic environment through which the cable is running. Don't run it parellel to 100 feet of lighting cable or drape it over the neon BEER sign behind the stage in the bar.

 

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Right, except by "very short" I'd say "under 30 feet." Balanced is best, no argument. Unbalanced is fine for shorter runs and stronger signals (though still, technically, not as good as balanced, but I can't hear a difference now and I couldn't 20 years ago when my ears still heard high frequencies well.)

 

XLR cables were designed for sending very weak mic signals long distances (over 100 feet). And they work!

 

Line level signals are quite beefy compared to mic signals, so common mode noise rejection is far less important. However, they also act as transmission lines with attending high frequency loss per foot based on capacitance per foot. I can't do the math (I bet Mike can!) But experience tells me that line level signals work just fine up to 20 or 30 feet, using decent low-capacitance cables (as quality mic cables should be, I presume.) They probably work farther than that, but I haven't tried it often enough to judge.

 

IMHO, there shouldn't be any problem using a single conductor for common for left and right. In theory, sharing a common should be better than using two cables with separate commons, due to avoiding a ground loop. In practice, I don't have ground loop issues using two unbalanced lines, so I don't think that advantage is significant.

 

Use one of these (and the female XLR to male 1/4" Y adaptor cable at the other end):

 

http://www.markertek.com/product/ya-110/xlr-male-to-dual-1-4-inch-mono-male-y-cable-12-inch?utm_medium=shoppingengine&utm_source=googlebase&utm_source=google&utm_term=Product_Target&utm_campaign=Shopping+-+Cable+Assemblies&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=cqU4OIEh|pcrid|74923778900|pdv|c|&gclid=Cj0KEQjwr8uuBRCcg6-s-4TrmIsBEiQAN1TdEXeq0Xwg7Lzvhztgfrs1UGOU4dOlhJaOJ--UlCC4HJMaAhVy8P8HAQ

 

Bad news: they're $30 each, so that's $60 plus the cost of your XLR cable. You can reduce the price by making them yourself. If you're going to do that, you might as well just make a stereo 1/4" cable. However, the adaptors give you the ability to use XLR cables of different lengths and daisy chain them for longer runs.

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XLR cables were designed for sending very weak mic signals long distances (over 100 feet). And they work!

 

They work for that, and for other things, too. But like any other cable, they have capacitance, about the same per foot. The reason why a 100 foot mic cable works is because the source impedance (the microphone) is low. Running a guitar pickup through a 100 foot mic cable will suffer the same loss as running a guitar pickup through a 100 foot "guitar" cable. Maybe even worse since some instrument cables are built so as to have lower than common capacitance per foot.

 

The advantage of using a two-conductor cable is to take advantage of the common mode rejection of a differential input, but that only works if the source is balanced. See the article about balanced and unbalanced connections on my web site for details.

 

IMHO, there shouldn't be any problem using a single conductor for common for left and right. In theory, sharing a common should be better than using two cables with separate commons, due to avoiding a ground loop. In practice, I don't have ground loop issues using two unbalanced lines, so I don't think that advantage is significant.
.

 

I've run unbalanced left and right outputs from a sound card in the "office" to the stereo in the living room, a run of about 50 feet and it sounds fine.

 

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